Chapter Text
Yaoyorozu Momo was one of five students who frequented the common area of the dorms before 7 am.
First to leave their room was Tokoyami Fumikage, who liked to watch the stars disappear as night gave way to dawn. He’d already been given a permanent pass to get onto the roof without setting off alarms, and according to him he was up there well before 6:00 am every day.
Bakugou Katsuki was an early to bed, early to wake type; he emerged from his room just after 6:00 to go for a run, returning around 6:45 to join Momo for tea.
Momo herself woke early to prepare herself for the day, moving to the kitchen at around 6:30. She prepared tea for the group, joined by Jirou Kyouka and occasionally Hagakure Tooru around the same time Bakugou returned. Bakugou made them breakfast, Tokoyami descended from the roof, and the others started to trickle in as they cleaned up and went their separate ways at around 7:20.
For Momo, the mornings were a sacred, quiet time, where unlikely friends joined together to enjoy the peace, sitting close and talking in hushed whispers. Even Bakugou was comparatively quiet, just after his run, though certainly still the loudest among them.
This particular day started off no different. At 6:35, Momo was alone in the kitchen, waiting for her water to boil and gazing contentedly out the window, when she felt it.
A disturbance.
The hairs on the back of her neck rose, the prickling sensation of being watched running down her spine. Someone was here who should not have been— but who?
“Hey Darling~ what has you up so early?”
Mineta.
Momo stood from where she was seated at the counter and rounded on the purple menace. To her utter dismay, Mineta was stood between her and the rest of the dorm, effectively trapping her in the kitchen unless she wanted to move closer to get past him.
She did not.
He had that terrible smirk on his face, as if he was in on some dirty secret— as if it were scandalous that she be down here this early, as if the two of them were meeting in secret in the early hours of the day.
He spoke again. Crudely, suggestively, he spoke. “There’s none else here, babe. We could do whatever we wanted~ Is that why you’re here so early? So none knows your sexy morning routine? Well, I don’t mind, in fact I’d love to help—”
“No, thank you,” Momo said; trying for polite and failing. Her lip pulled up in a bit of a snarl and she squared her shoulders. “I’m making tea, and would appreciate some privacy.”
At this, the grape whined , literally whined, “C’mooon, you can’t possibly want to be all alone!”
“I do, in fact,” she slipped a hand behind her back, under her loose sweatshirt, preparing to use her quirk (to do what, she wasn’t sure) as Mineta took two steps closer to her.
“You don’t have to lie to me, beautiful,” she stepped back for every step he made forward, keeping the same distance between them. “You should be grateful; I could have my pick of all the girls in the school, and I’m choosing you!”
Her heel hit the bottom of the kitchen counter. The kettle had started to steam.
Mineta reached for her free hand. She jerked it away, took half a step forward, preparing to kick him— punt him across the room like he deserved.
Mineta reached into his own hair before she could stop him and, dodging her kick, used one of his balls to stick her leg to the drawers behind her. She had no choice but to use her free hand to grab the counter for balance, and then he stuck that down too. Suddenly, the situation felt a lot more serious.
“Cmon, babe, you know you aren’t allowed to fight another student outside of training!”
Could this kid not take no for an answer?! Momo wanted him out of her personal space, she wanted him out of her kitchen, and she wanted her morning back, thank you very much!
The elevator opened with a soft ding . Momo didn’t notice it.
She needed Mineta to shut up. What could she create to fight him that she could operate with one hand and slip out from under her shirt without damaging it?
Then he touched her leg , and any coherent thought left her all at once. She felt the tell-tale tingle of her quirk activating against her back, and the next thing she knew she was pointing a glock at the fucking purple bastard and pulling the trigger.
Mineta fell to the floor.
The kettle screamed.
Tooru shrieked.
—
Kyouka was just coming out of her room when she heard a gunshot.
It was quiet— muffled. Silenced. But she had really good hearing, even without plugging in her ear jacks, and this was a sound she knew well.
She was moving before she fully registered the implications— Momo’s down there, making tea, where’s Bakugou? — taking the stairs three at a time, slamming open the door to the common area, skidding around the corner into the kitchen. She made it there in seconds.
The scene that greeted her was not what Kyouka had been expecting.
Mineta was sprawled on the ground, his face mangled, bits of something (was that brain matter? ) on the ground and on the lower cabinets.
And there was so much blood everywhere; Mineta was tiny, how could that much blood even fit in his body?!
The three girls (Hagakure was there, too, she got brain on her shoes— ) watched in morbid fascination as the sticky balls holding her friend to the counter slowly lost their sheen and fell away.
Mineta was definitely dead.
Momo edged around the rapidly spreading pool of blood on the kitchen floor. Hagakure ushered her forward, gently took the gun from her friend’s hands, and took an audible breath.
“Good riddance.”
The taller girl blinked her shock away, her features transforming into incredulity and speaking in a quiet, horrified voice. “Tooru, I just killed someone!”
Kyouka pulled the other two a little further away, not wanting to see the body just then, “Yeah, and good on you. Don’t you think the creep had it coming?”
Momo opened and closed her mouth a few times, searching for the words, looking between her two friends. “Well… yeah, yeah, he did, but— I’m going to get in so much trouble.”
Hagakure took a deep, shaky breath. “You won’t get in trouble if they don’t find out.”
Kyouka was in agreement. “We’ll just have to deal with the body before anyone else comes down.”
So, of course, someone else came down.
“... Sweet everlasting darkness.”
Tokoyami stood at the base of the stairwell, eyes wide, in plain view of Mineta’s mangled corpse.
There was a very tense moment of silence, all three girls fully expecting Tokoyami to turn and run, to go find Aizawa and report this like any sane individual should do . However, while it was hard to tell with his bird-like face, he seemed more thoughtful than afraid.
Tokoyami broke the silence he created.
“It seems the void has claimed him for his misdeeds.”
The trio let out a collective breath.
Hagakure nodded (?) and let out just a titch of hysterical laughter. “You uh… wanna help us hide a body, Fumi?”
He did.
And so the four of them got to work. Momo created a waterproof bag and some very long tongs. Dark Shadow very carefully rolled Mineta’s body to the edge of the blood pool so that Momo could pick him up and put him in the bag; once that was done, she created some cleaning supplies. Extra-absorbent paper towel sopped up most of the blood, and it joined the corpse in the small body bag.
Tooru was on lookout; she came rushing back into the kitchen at 6:44, as the others had just started with the bleach— the blood was very much still visible on the floor. At least the brain had been cleaned up.
“Bakugou’s back from his run! He’ll be here any minute—”
Momo put a hand up, stood from where she had crouched to create a bucket, “I’ll talk to him, thank you Tooru.”
As the class Vice Representative made her way around the corner and stood sentry facing the front door to intercept Bakugou, she didn’t notice just how much blood she’d gotten on her clothes (and in her hair). Bakugou, on the other hand, definitely noticed, which lead to the first words out of his mouth being:
“What, you cleaning up a fucking murder in there?”
Momo stood very still.
“Well… yes.”
“You… What, you’re serious? Some idiot break in and get their ass killed by the morning crew, huh?” Bakugou shut the door behind him, stopping just outside of smelling distance of Momo. He crossed his arms.
“Not exactly. Mineta may have… cornered me in the kitchen. I may have reacted without forethought.” Momo watched as Bakugou blinked and swallowed, the reality of the situation slowly dawning on him. “What I need to know, Bakugou, is whether you’re going to report this.”
The blonde put a hand on his head, shook himself, hunched forward… and then started laughing. Cackling for a solid fifteen seconds before collecting himself.
“I told the bastard, ‘you keep harassing super-powered chicks, one day you’ll go too far, and it won’t end well for you’, but clearly he didn’t listen to me!”
Momo relaxed. “So, you’ll keep this quiet? A little morning crew secret?”
Bakugou rolled his eyes and pushed past her, “yeah, whatever, just make sure you clean up properly—” he turned the corner ahead of her, “and if you get found out, I’m not going down with you.”
Ten minutes later and the kitchen was as clean as it could be in such a limited amount of time. Bakugou agreed to come back after curfew and help Momo to deep clean and apply the chemicals that would theoretically destroy any remaining trace of blood— on the off-chance police searched the dorms thoroughly.
Hopefully they wouldn’t be that suspicious.
The five of them made their way, body-bag in tow, into the forest near the dorms. Sneaking out through the wide dining room window, They walked quite a ways along the winding trails, then cut off the path and into the woods proper. None else was around— the Hero course was the only one on campus, getting extra training for their Provisional Licensing Exam.
After about ten minutes of walking, they came across a clearing with soft, loose ground, and no grass. Perfect.
They got to digging.
With five of them, the work was quick. Mineta’s body was small, so his grave was dug to match; when it was done, the body bag was unceremoniously rolled in, and the earth piled on top of it.
And so it was that six people stood over a shallow grave at 7:28 on a warm August morning, the sun barely peeking up above the hills behind the trees.
Wait… six people?
Shinsou Hitoshi cleared his throat.
“Would anybody like to say a few words for the dearly departed?” he drawled, sarcasm dripping from every word.
Suddenly the air felt a lot chillier.
The gen-ed student put both his hands up with a smirk “Hey, I won’t tell if you guys don’t. Let me guess, the little grape-rat bastard? Or is it some poor animal?”
Hagakure was the first to recover.
“What are you even doing on campus?”
Shinsou lifted an eyebrow. “Training, same as you. I’m hoping to transfer into Heroics— I guess I know which class has room, now.”
“How can we know for sure you won’t snitch?” Jirou asked.
Shinsou tilted his head back, feeling the first rays of sun against his face. “Sunrise pact,” he said, simply.
Yaomomo looked confused. Tokoyami nodded.
“Indeed. A promise, witnessed by the first rays of the new dawn, is highly potent.”
The purple haired boy gestured towards Tokoyami with one hand. “Yeah, what he said.”
Bakugou growled.
Jirou looked uneasy. “All right, then, what’s our Sunrise Pact?”
Yaomomo took a deep breath. Thought of what she wanted to say. Drew her shoulders back, stood tall, faced the group— she was Vice Representative. She was in charge. She knew what had to be done.
“Mineta Minoru is dead. He was killed by the will of those he had wronged. We, six—” She shot a glare at Shinsou— “have witnessed this act. And none but us can ever know about this. We swear to keep this secret, the sun as our witness. That is our Sunrise Pact.”
Nods and determined faces all around the fresh grave echoed her sentiment.
—
Mineta, of course, did not show up to training that day.
For the five who knew what had happened, it was an incredibly stressful morning. It didn’t help that they’d all been too busy covering up a murder to eat a proper breakfast, but every time Aizawa-sensei glared at the area he’d prepared for the grape-haired boy to train, Katsuki was reminded that not everyone would take the grape’s disappearance as lightly as the Pact had.
The five of them made a point not to act any different. Katsuki wasn’t normally very friendly with any of the others in that group— the mornings had always been an exception to the people he usually hung around with.
Kaminari was visibly worried, glancing from the door to Aizawa to where Mineta ought to be. Right as they broke for lunch, Katsuki noticed him talking to Aizawa— and then he never came into the lunchroom.
After lunch, Aizawa addressed the class.
“Mineta Minoru is missing,” he said, in his usual deadpan, “if anyone has any idea where he’s gone, tell me or one of the other teachers. As far as I’m aware, he hasn’t been seen since last night.”
During their afternoon training exercise, done one at a time in small groups, Katsuki watched Yaoyorozu nod and whisper to empty air. He shot her a glance that could only be described as “aggressively confused” and she responded by elbowing— presumably— Hagakure.
This was confirmed a moment later by the warmth of an invisible body sidling up next to him, and a voice whispering in his ear.
“I’m going to go find out what they know,” she said. “Cover for me,” and then she was gone.
She moves like a ghost, Katsuki thought. Freaky.
Then he noticed Aizawa-sensei making his way back towards the main building, and it registered that the invisible girl was most likely following him; spying on their teacher.
She better not fuck it up.
—
Aizawa sat slouched in a chair opposite Nedzu’s desk. On the monitor, angled so they could both see it, were the Heights Alliance security cameras.
“The camera positioned towards the outside of the elevator and the kitchen has been out of commission for a few days, ever since what your class has dubbed the Gravy Incident,” Nedzu explained with faux-cheer, “and the camera in the elevator was a recent casualty of Bakugou Katsuki’s quirk.”
Aizawa slumped further forwards in his chair. “So… all we have is the hallway camera, and all we know is that Mineta left his room and entered the elevator at 6:32. Where did he go?”
“It seems as though he never made it into the common area! The only person there at the time was Yaoyorozu Momo; Bakugou was outside of the dorm, and Tokoyami was on the roof,” Nedzu briefly held down a key on the keyboard in front of him, and the video sped forward a couple minutes. “As you can see… here, Hagakure Tooru took the same elevator down just two minutes and twelve seconds later, and then…” he clicked another key. The cameras shown changed; images of one girls’ side hallway and the stairwell filled the screen.
Aizawa frowned. “Jirou sure does move quickly, there.”
It was true. They rewound and watched it again; Jirou opened her door, eyes on her phone, and then paused— froze, really— before taking off like a bullet into the stairwell, down two flights of stairs and bursting out of view into their huge kami-forsaken blindspot.
“I wonder what motivated her to run like that,” Nedzu wondered.
“It’s… suspicious,” Aizawa granted.
Then he sighed, sat up straight, and pushed his hair out of his face. “So, to recap: Mineta walked into the elevator at 6:32, and Yaoyorozu should have seen him exit but apparently did not. Hagakure entered the elevator at 6:34 and also apparently saw nothing. Then,” he gestured at the monitor, “Jirou bolted like a bat out of hell down the stairs… and yet also apparently saw nothing.”
Nedzu nodded, that deceptively cheerful smile on his face, “so either someone is withholding information, or Mineta vanished from the elevator.”
Tooru wondered if Nedzu could hear her heartbeat. She hoped not.
The principal turned off the monitor. “Well then. I think our next course of action should be to make sure none of your students are hiding anything; I know of a certain detective who’s quirk should come in quite handy…”
Aizawa nodded. “Tsukauchi, I know him. Lie Detector would be good for this.”
Nedzu clapped his paws together. “Perfect! I’ll have him come in as soon as possible. How does tomorrow after lunch sound to you?”
Aizawa sighed and moved to stand. “Sounds fine. Now, I’d like to watch the last half hour of my class’ current exercise.” He opened the door before turning back to say one last thing— “Let me know if you need to see me after school’s out,”— giving Tooru the perfect opportunity to slip past him, back out the door and into the hallway.
—
Tsukauchi Naomasa had been to UA plenty of times since the start of this school year.
It came with the package of being friends with the Ex Number One— and Nedzu, now, by extension. He had sat in on the initial meetings between Toshinori and the principal, to ensure Nedzu’s intentions were as he said they were, and at many meetings since where it was vital that honesty be ensured; often between Nedzu and informants, or Nedzu and Hero Commission representatives.
But he had never been asked here to question students.
He understood the reasoning— a student had disappeared without a trace, and it made sense to clear the other students of suspicion before proceeding too far into the investigation. Naomasa tried to remember, as he waited for the first one to come through the door of the empty classroom he’d been set up in, that they weren’t expecting to find anything here— that if the students knew nothing, that would be a good thing. None of them had been informed of his quirk, either, so he could keep the questions simple and straightforward without worrying that the kids would find loopholes.
He went through each of the students in seat order, asking the same four questions:
“When did you last see Mineta Minoru?”
“Where were you between 6:30 and 6:35 am yesterday morning?”
“Do you know anything about the current whereabouts of Mineta?”
“Do you know of anyone who may have wanted to cause Mineta harm?”
No useful information was gleaned from any of these questions— except for the last one.
There was the obvious answer that the League may have targeted him, as they had targeted the entire class before (but, as Asui pointed out, the League was crippled at Kamino, and it would have made more sense for them to target another student, one who had caused them problems directly, if they had the resources to do so. No, no, something was wrong here, something didn’t add up…)
The unexpected answer was that any of the female students would have ample reason to wish harm on the missing boy.
“It’s weird that he’s vanished, but honestly I’m glad he’s gone,” Ashido Mina had been the first to express. True.
“Mineta has shown some rather perverted tendencies!” Iida Tenya, the class president, clarified; “My female classmates have expressed their discomfort to me, and I imagine it causes quite a bit of distress.” True.
“I had no idea how much worse he would get in the dorms!” Uraraka Ochako; Iida’s friend. “It was one thing with him touching us during heroics exercises, but I have to check under the table every time we eat to make sure he’s not hiding under there!” True, how has this not been addressed?
In contrast to the rest of the class, Kaminari Denki was rather upset when Naomasa brought up Mineta’s actions. “I know, I know he takes it too far sometimes,” the electric boy said, “but he really doesn’t know any better! I don’t think anyone’s ever told him off before. His dad works for the Hero Commission, you know? He’s a fun guy, when the girls aren’t around. I hope he’s alright.” True.
Kaminari had been by far the most nervous of all the students upon entering the room; and despite the situation causing him some measure of distress, he also seemed to relax when the questions were focused and targeted only on the subject of Mineta. Maybe he’s got something to hide, Naomasa wondered, but it hasn’t anything to do with Mineta.
The five students Naomasa wanted to talk to the most— more and more so, as these new allegations came to light— were all in the latter half of the seating chart. First, Jirou Kyouka: the one most likely to have heard something , even if she didn’t know what it was.
“I last saw Mineta at dinner two nights ago,” she said, seeming bored. True.
“I guess… 6:30 was around when I went to meet Momo in the kitchen.” True. and yet...
“I don’t know where he went, no.” True.
Naomasa asked her another question, off-script, but necessary. “We went over security footage, and saw you run pretty quickly from your room down the stairs at 6:32. Did you hear or see something that prompted you to hurry like that?”
But Jirou shook her head. “No, nothing like that. Momo and I have a game going on where she texts me and I have to run to her as fast as possible— she times it from the moment the text says ‘read’. It’s to practice responding to emergencies.”
Naomasa nodded. True. Seems she knows nothing.
“Do you know of anyone who may have wanted to cause Mineta harm?”
She rolled her eyes, at that. “Tons of people. I’ve punted him off other girls and across the room more times than I can count. Idiot doesn’t know how to keep his filthy hands to himself.”
True.
Tokoyami Fumikage had been up on the roof until about 6:35, and he said he saw nothing out of the ordinary when he came down. True.
Similarly, Hagakure Tooru and Bakugou Katsuki said they had joined Yaoyorozu and Jirou for breakfast and tea as usual— “don’t go telling all the extras I make the morning crew breakfast,” Bakugou demanded, “or that I drink tea. The five of us are sworn to secrecy.” True.
Midoriya Izuku had come prepared with a notebook and countless questions about Naomasa’s quirk, because apparently Toshinori was only capable of keeping secrets from his successor when it was information that the boy should know. He had also, however, come armed with both theories about Mineta’s disappearance and hard proof of his misconduct towards the girls, so the detective decided not to hold it against his friend.
Lastly, Yaoyorozu Momo, the class Vice Representative. Like everyone else, she last saw Mineta the night before his disappearance.
“He kept asking me to pass him things at the dinner table,” she clenched her fist in her lap, “just so he could touch my hand. It was highly inappropriate.” True.
“I don’t know where he is now, I don’t know what happened, and I don’t think anyone from our class was involved,” she looked Naomasa dead in the eye, “but I hope he never comes back.”
True.
Throughout all of his interviews, not a single student had lied.
—
Shinsou Hitoshi was waiting outside Ground Gamma, on the path that would bring class 1-A back into the main buildings.
He needed to speak to the Sunrise Pact, which would be made more difficult by the fact that, well, none of them remembered the sunrise pact.
“Yaoyorozu Momo, forget your involvement in the death of Mineta Minoru,” his quirk thrummed through his words, made more effective by the lack of resistance. “Believe that yesterday went as normal. You played a game with Jirou where you sent a text telling her to find you, and then she ran down the stairs. You made the morning crew tea. Bakugou made you breakfast.” And finally, “Retain no knowledge of the Sunrise Pact or any conversations held between the members of the Sunrise Pact in the last 36 hours.”
As an added precaution, he built in something he hoped would help make re-remembering smoother, later. “When I tell you to recover the memories I altered, remember everything I have told you to forget; at that point, return your memories to their rightful state.”
It had been a bit of a repetitive process, using his quirk to block access to everyone’s memories one at a time, but he’d been practicing this exact usage of it with Midoriya since the green-haired boy found out it was even possible.
“Jirou,” he whispered, low enough he knew only she could hear him, “can I ask you a question?”
She raised an eyebrow as she stepped off the main path and followed him to a slightly more secluded area. “... sure?”
Hitoshi felt his quirk take hold of her mind, and felt her flash of panic as she fought against it. “It’s alright, just returning something, please stay calm,” he asked.
He felt her confusion.
“Recover the memories I altered,” he commanded.
She would have gasped, if she’d had control over her body. He released her from his quirk, and she blinked away the feeling of unsteadiness. After a few moments, she had recovered fully and turned to face him.
“Was I first?”
“Nah, I got the Pomeranian when he went to the bathroom earlier. Can you help me get the others?”
Jirou nodded, “I can get the girls, you might have to find Tokoyami later, though.”
Hitoshi brought a hand to the back of his neck, “well, I gotta go soon, don’t wanna miss my train…”
“You don’t live on campus?”
Hitoshi shook his head. “Gen-ed student, remember?”
Jirou looked unimpressed. “Well, yeah, but you’re transferring into Heroics soon, right? Especially now that Mineta’s gone.”
Hitoshi swallowed. “I… want to. Dunno if my foster parents will let me move into dorms though.”
“Well, you’ll have to move in for Heroics. Talk to Aizawa-sensei about it.”
He shifted awkwardly. “Yeah… I’ll see.”
Thankfully, Jirou seemed to get the hint. “I’ll find the others. Can we meet up tomorrow morning?”
Hitoshi relaxed. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll be here at seven.”
And, maybe one day soon, he could be there before seven.
Maybe soon, he could join the rest of the Pact in 1-A; up before sunrise for breakfast and tea.
A boy could dream.